Facing Deadline, Calif. Is Locked In Battle Over How To Teach Math

Homework can often reveal a lot about a student--whether adult or
child.

And nowhere has that been more evident of late than with the group
of Californians charged with revising the blueprint for the state's
K-12 math curriculum.

Assigned to write down what they envision, members of the framework
committee turned in homework at a meeting here late last month so
filled with disparate viewpoints that the panelists couldn't even agree
on whether they had reached any common ground. Only later during the
two-day session did the members feel confident enough to agree to draft
language on such issues as the need for professional development for
teachers.

The strong and varied passions on the panel reflect the feelings of
residents around the state on K-12 math education. Known as a cultural
bellwether, California this time is leading with the nastiest,
highest-profile battle over who knows best when it comes to teaching
mathematics to schoolchildren.

From Palo Alto to San Diego, the debate has been raging for several
years. But now, with a 22-member committee facing a summer deadline to
revise the state framework, the stakes are higher.

The zeal with which the parties have dug in has left the impression
that "it isn't a question now of what is best for children, but who's
going to win," said Jack Price, the immediate past president of the
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

California, of course, is not the only state where there is
disagreement over which mathematical approach leads to the strongest
student achievement. Similar criticisms of state or local math-reform
ideas have sprung up in Iowa, Montana, and Texas.

In fact, the rancor over K-16 math issues nationally spurred a
conference in Washington late last week. The nonprofit Education
Development Center of Newton, Mass., sponsored the event, with support
from the National Science Foundation. Organizers hoped to encourage
constructive debate on math issues among about 50 invited
mathematicians, math educators, and teachers.

'Bring Math Back'

Opposing camps in the debate represent those who believe in the
reform agenda set up by the standards that the NCTM wrote and released
in 1989 and those who don't. California modeled the 1992 framework that
it currently uses on those national standards, which are themselves now
being revised.

Believers include the California Mathematics Council, an
organization of 12,000 teachers affiliated with the national math
educators' council. Some parents, teachers, and others, however, prefer
a more traditional approach.

Among other aims, math reformers nationwide have sought to emphasize
classroom innovations such as conceptual understanding, mental
computation and estimation, cooperative work, problem-solving, and the
use of calculators and computers. They have downplayed--but not
forsaken--rote memorization, isolated paper-and-pencil computations,
drill and practice, and "teaching by telling."

Margaret DeArmond, the president of the state math council,
maintains that a changing social and technological climate is driving
the need for such change. Children must understand the concepts behind
math because of "what kind of jobs students need in the future," she
argued.

On the other side are people like Martha Schwartz, one of the
founders of the anti-reform group Mathematically Correct, which has
stoked the debate with its Web site on the Internet. Ms. Schwartz, who
sits on the framework committee with another Mathematically Correct
founder, contends that strong content is missing: "I want to bring
mathematics back into the classroom."

In the math framework, "there's a lot of philosophizing," she said.
"Nowhere do you see expectations.

"We need to be much more specific and need to focus on skills and
knowledge," said Ms. Schwartz, a lecturer in math and science at
California State University-Dominguez Hills in Carson.

CLAS Roots

Some observers chart the beginning of the latest furor over math in
California to criticism over the now-defunct California Learning
Assessment System exam. The system, known as clas, was meant to be an
innovative measure of critical thinking and problem-solving. Reformers
say the CLAS test in math reflected the now troubled 1992
framework.

Since then, there has been one political entanglement after another.
In 1995, amid criticism over the math framework and low math scores
compared with those of other states, state Superintendent of Public
Instruction Delaine Eastin convened a task force to turn achievement
around. The task force called for a "balance" of basic skills,
conceptual understanding, and problem-solving.

Then, after the state school board decided to rewrite the math
framework, assembling a framework committee became a flashpoint. Last
fall, the state board rejected the slate of names provided by the state
curriculum commission and accepted a substitute list offered by board
member Janet Nicholas--a list perceived as packed with
anti-reformers.

The resulting firestorm found the state math teachers' council
circulating a petition of protest that drew 3,000 signatures from
teachers, parents, and community members in less than a month. In
December, the board added three members perceived as pro-reform.

But as last month's framework-committee meeting showed, the road has
not been much smoother since then. One parent member, who has been
highly critical of the 1992 framework, turned in a 10-page list of more
than 300 specific types of tasks children should know how to do.

A teacher member submitted a derisive cartoon showing a tumbledown
shack labeled the "'92 Framework." Standing in front of the shack, a
man with a briefcase tells another man: "The officials say you may not
tear it down. ... You may only remodel!"

Still others on the panel urged that students gain conceptual
understanding as well as basic skills.

Meanwhile, California's disappointing test scores on the National
Assessment of Educational Progress continue to fuel criticism of the
framework. In the 1996 round of testing released two weeks ago,
California's 4th and 8th grade scores barely moved since 1992. The 4th
grade score places California nearly last among the states, and the 8th
grade score ranks it in the bottom quarter. ("Students Post Higher NAEP Math Scores,"
March 5, 1997.)

Ms. DeArmond and others, however, say that critics haven't given the
reforms enough time. The first year in which classroom materials would
have reflected the 1992 framework was 1995, they said.

"It's really hard to judge and say it's not working, because it
hasn't even become a reality," Patricia Montgomery, a
framework-committee member and elementary teacher, told her colleagues
on the panel last month.

"The concern here is ... that the group put together for this
framework will not recognize the fact that there is a middle ground
that we need to be striving for," said Mr. Price, the former nctm
president, who is a professor of math education at California State
Polytechnic University-Pomona.

Not everyone is chagrined over the discord, however. Taking into
account varied opinions about curriculum is necessary to make progress,
said Wayne Harvey, the director of the Center for Learning, Teaching,
and Technology at the Education Development Center and an organizer of
the math conference held in Washington.

It may mean taking two steps in one direction and one in another in
that state, Mr. Harvey said, but the cacophony can't be dismissed.
"It's a sort of demonstration of what might be brewing elsewhere."